This invention relates to a connector comprising a housing made of an insulating material having a bottom portion and side walls, and a plurality of contacts made of an elastic material held in the bottom portion of the housing and each having a contact portion at a location where it contacts a contact element provided on a card-shaped connecting object such as, for example, an IC card and memory card inserted in a predetermined position in the housing, and more particularly to a connector being capable of effectively preventing the buckling of contacts when a card-shaped connecting object is extraordinarily inserted into and removed from the housing, while realizing a more reduced overall height of the connector.
A connector used for connecting a card-shaped connecting object such as an IC card and memory card has been known as shown in, for example, FIGS. 1 and 2. The connector 100 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 includes a housing 105 made of an insulating material having a bottom portion 101, side walls 102 and 103, and a rear wall 104, a plurality of contacts 106 held in the bottom portion 101 of said housing 105 and each having a contact portion 107 at a location where it contacts a contact element provided on a card-shaped connecting object inserted in a predetermined position in the housing 105, and a holding bar 108 provided in the bottom portion 101 of the housing 105 for holding the contacts 106 in a laterally aligned relationship at predetermined intervals.
In such a connector 100, the contacts 106 are made of an elastic material and extend from the holding bar 108 upwardly and toward the interior of said housing 105 so that tips 109 of the contacts 106 are arranged in an exposed state as free ends. Therefore, when the card-shaped connecting object has been inserted, the tips 109 of the contacts 106 are pushed downwardly, while after the card-shaped connecting object has been removed, the tips 109 of the contacts 106 move upwardly to their initial positions with the aid of the restoring force of their springy elasticity.
With such a connector 100, however, under extraordinarily used conditions in that a card-shaped connecting object is forced into or out of slots 110 provided in both the side walls of the housing irrespective of resistance, the contacts 106 would be pushed downwardly to an excessive extent so that the contacts 106 are frequently deformed in their plastic zone beyond their elastic zone. In such an event, the contacts 106 are buckled and could not be restored to their original positions so that there is a risk of causing defective or failed electrical connection.
As an approach for preventing the buckling of contacts, Japanese Patent Application Opened No. 2003-297,460 (Patent Literature 1) has proposed to provide particular contacts each having a spring portion which extends from a holding portion and is bent in the form of a clip (having a U-shaped cross-section) to provide a sufficient elasticity to the spring portion.
With this approach of the prior art disclosed in the above Patent Literature 1, the contacts must necessarily be of a large profile due to their shape described above, thereby causing a problem of higher overall dimension of the connector.